Company profile

Papua Expeditions is a trade name of cv.Ekonexion,
a 100 % locally-owned micro-company, founded in June 2005 as a Limited
Partnership with registered office in the coastal town of Sorong (on the
northwestern tip of New Guinea's Bird's Head Peninsula), and further organized
after the laws and regulations of the Republic of Indonesia, the Papua
Special Autonomous Region, the province of West Papua, and the town of
Sorong. Throughout Indonesia, a Limited Partnership is known as Commanditaire
Vennootschap or simply CV (following former Dutch colonial law) and
remains the default legal framework for small and medium-sized, typically
family-owned businesses. Essentially it is a body corporate for trade
and tax purposes, but whereby the trading partners remain severally liable
under all circumstances. Under Indonesian law a Limited Partnership must
use double-entry bookkeeping and report on a monthly basis.

Our mission is to promote the vast natural wonders of
West Papua to the world and to bring these within reach of any reasonably
fit group of travelers with a genuine sense for adventure. Throughout
our business activities, emerges the foresight to embrace and expand on
existing conservation priorities, as well as the endeavor to create through
responsible travel, economically viable and sustainable income-generating
mechanisms for secluded indigenous communities living at the heart of
biodiversity. This is a focused and independent investment toward strengthening
and fine-tuning both conservation and community development efforts and
policies. In order to maximize the outlook of tangible results in these
fields, each ecotourism destination in West Papua that we promote, as
a starting point, has been carefully selected on the basis of biodiversity
richness and species endemism, existing conservation priorities, ecosystem
and habitat intactness, accessibility, and not least community receptiveness.
Perhaps our universal message should simply be that, by carefully choosing
who you entrust with organizing your Papua experience, you can help to
make a difference!

Like Wijaya (°1984) founded Papua
Expeditions/cv.Ekonexion at age 21 and has been spearheading the company
as its managing director ever since. Like (pronounced Leeka in
Indonesian) is a daughter of Raja Ampat and truly a jack-of-all-trades.
Foremost, a visionary and ardent supporter of life on Earth, at age 24
she concludes an ambitious and innovative conservation agreement with
customary landholding groups on the largest Raja Ampat island of Waigeo
in a bid to preserve a magnificently forested river catchment for future
generations, thereby bringing new hope to globally threatened wildlife
on the island. Like has traveled extensively throughout West Papua and
beyond, and in the field is a skillful organizer, troubleshooter and negotiator,
an accomplished and inventive cook, as well as a first-rate birder. In
fact, she probably has seen more West Papua endemics than any other Indonesian
ornithologist or bird guide alike, including Bruijn's Brushturkey, Kofiau
Paradise Kingfisher, Kofiau Monarch, and Snow Mountains Robin, all of
which still have only been seen by the most intrepid of birders. With
a multitude of administrative skills, Like also is the driving force in
the office. She speaks fluent English, Dutch and Indonesian.

Papua Expeditions
is, in my opinion, a model
of how responsible eco-tourism should
operate. The whole trip ran remarkably smoothly,
which, given the logistical difficulties
of operating in a country with basically
no tourism infrastructure must rate
as an achievement.Julian Thomas, UK

Your hard work in
West Papua is well known and appreciated.
The Chinese says the right
road is tough.Felix Ng, Hong Kong SAR